The Tower

The 16th Key

Colour: Scarlet
Sound: C Natural
Planet: Mars
DOUBLE LETTER: Grace / Indignation

The Path connects Splendour with Victory. This is the equilibrating path of the Personality.

To this card is attributed mouth. The mouth is associated with taking in nourishment which makes its way into the system and speech which moves out of the system. The power of speech cannot be underestimated. The expression of any God Name's vibration can be felt in the physical body and has an associated effect on the psychic body. The Logos is also called the Word.

Words of power assist in bringing about the destruction of our personal towers, false beliefs and institutions which we perceive as reality. However, this must not be seen as the destruction of evil. It is also not just for the sake of it but for the purpose of making room for something new. This is depicted on the card by the lightning strikes against the tower and the people falling out of it.

Spiritual learning involves the continual building up and striking down of perceptions formed only for the purposes of being a useful steppingstone into the inner worlds. The Tower is the concept of what most people call ‘I’. This Personality awareness is shattered by an influx of force revealing something of the nature of the Higher Self. Yet these Towers are at first necessary and useful creations of man. The Tower also symbolises all manmade institutions such as government and religion.

We must learn to apply the underlying principles of each Path without being bound by their necessarily artificial outward and manmade appearance. Any path is ultimately artificial, whether it be Hinduism, Qabalah or Christianity. Every construct of these structures will need to be destroyed at some point. Once the lightning strikes, energy is released to be reconstructed in another way.

Notice how the Tower is isolated, standing alone on a desolate mountain top. Most people perceive themselves in this way. As separate units of consciousness. The lightning strikes down the false crowns of our existence, the manmade values that we believe control us. This is a conscious attempt to align ourselves with the primal will of the Crown which brings about the destruction of our belief that we have a personal will.

The Path is also linked to the biblical story of the tower of Babel which symbolises how a tower built on false notions results in nothing but confusion. The confusion is brought about when God sought to punish the men building a tower to conquer the heavens by imposing diverse languages across the land. If you are locked into any brick-and-mortar system you will be unable to see beyond that system to the Divine Unity which is the Light of all true religions.

The Path is related to Mars and the North or the place of the greatest darkness. This is because it is said that the sun never shone in the North of Solomon's temple. It must however be remembered that light comes from darkness and that the process of spiritual development is not one of sweetness. The Tower reminds us that this process can be overwhelming. When we invoke the inner forces what we get is what we need and not always what we expect, seldom what we want.

On the Tower itself there are three windows, representing the supernal triangle indicating that the activity on this Path involves our Cosmic Selves.